Playboy's Back Issues Released on Hard Disk

When hiding magazines under blankets is too cumbersome, when high-powered binoculars are too cost prohibitive, and when millions of free adult video sites can't be narrowed down, there's Playboy's new offering.

There was a time when to get an entire backlog of Playboy, one would either need a very creepy but dedicated uncle or blueprints to the secret tunnel that spans the grotto and mansion. But now, Playboy has taken floor plans and estranged familial relationships out of the equation by releasing a 250GB hard drive containing 56 years of the magazine cover-to-cover.

Using Mad Magazine and National Lampoon as a conceptual springboard, Playboy has digitized its entire back catalog up to January of this year. The Windows and Mac-compatible USB drive includes every issue starting with December 1953 featuring Marilyn Monroe all the way up to the December 2009 issue featuring, wow, Chelsea Handler. How the empire has fallen.

With over 650 issues and more than 100,000 pages of photos, Bill Maher interviews, and second-rate Norman Mailer stories, this collection ought to delight the porn enthusiast who's still contending with a dial-up connection.

But at $300, the hard drive is just a tad more expensive than external drives topping a terabyte or two. Then again, think of how long you would need to spend on Google Image Search to fill it.